Broadway's most famous Hamlet, Edwin Booth photo courtesy of the Players Club

One of the most beautiful spots in New York City is The Players Club. This Gramercy Square mansion is the home of this venerable organization which Edwin Booth, arguably the greatest American actor of the 19th century, founded along with Mark Twain, Joseph Jefferson and General William T. Sherman, as a place where, in Booth’s words, “actors could mingle with gentlemen.”

MICHAEL RIEDEL is guided around the club by HOWARD KISSEL, author of New York Theater Walks: Seven Historical Tours from Times Square to Greenwich Village and Beyond, and Player’s Club director JOHN MARTELLO and shown some of the wonderful artifacts that are preserved there, including the Yorick skull from Booth’s Hamlet (produced in 1866, just one year after his brother assassinated the president) which was bequeathed to Booth’s father by a horse thief just before he was hanged. (National Uplink available October 8.) Premiers on Thirteen Fri. Oct. 9th at 1:00 AM (Sat. Morning)